The national women’s hockey 5’s team captain Petro Stoffberg said yesterday that the score against the United States of America in the opening match at the ongoing FIH Hockey 5’s World Cup doesn’t reflect the team’s potential.
Namibia is currently taking part in the Hockey 5’s World Cup in Oman, where top countries in the hockey space are competing for the super honour. They played two matches yesterday, losing the opening encounter, while a match against Poland’s results were still pending at the time of going to press.
She was reflecting on their first match, in which they lost 6-1 to the USA in their opening encounter at the tournament. The captain admitted that the score was not what they expected, and said playing the Hockey 5’s is a different kind of game, and could get intense.
“It’s a harsh scoreline, but what people forget is that this is the Hockey 5’s, and the score could have been bigger. It was quite a tough match, and the USA is a bigger team, and we knew that coming into this match. They are a big country, and they have a large pool to choose players from,” she added.
Despite losing the first match, the captain expressed confidence in the team. “The fact that it’s 6-1 does not reflect our real potential; we are much better than what we showed on the field yesterday. But I am looking forward to the next games, and we plan to step it up and show other countries and the world that as Namibians, we don’t give up,” she enthused.
The 2024 Hockey 5s World Cup is the first edition of the FIH Women’s Hockey 5’s World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for women’s national Hockey 5s teams organised by the FIH. It started on 24 January, and will conclude on 27 January in Muscat, Oman.